Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swiftwas an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer, poet and cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth30 November 1667
CountryIreland
two example flattery
Nothing is so great an example of bad manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none; If you flatter only one or two, you offend the rest.
love cold capricious
As love without esteem is capricious and volatile; esteem without love is languid and cold.
men weather together
Under this window in stormy weather I marry this man and woman together; Let none but Him who rules the thunder Put this man and woman asunder.
political politics corruption
Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.
nails mindfulness scratches
Blot out, correct, insert, refine, enlarge, diminish, interline. Be mindful, when invention fails. To scratch your head and bite your nails.
eye sight sore-eyes
The sight of you is good for sore eyes.
eggs gullivers-travels break
It is computed that eleven thousand persons have at several times suffered death rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end.
lying law interest
"Lawyers Are": Those whose interests and abilities lie in perverting, confounding and eluding the law.
taken light age
By candle-light nobody would have taken you for above five-and-twenty.
food kissing cooking
This is every cook's opinion - no savory dish without an onion, but lest your kissing should be spoiled your onions must be fully boiled.
jobs cutting should-have
In church your grandsire cut his throat; to do the job too long he tarried: he should have had my hearty vote to cut his throat before he married.
order quality deceit
There is no quality so contrary to any nature which one cannot affect, and put on upon occasion, in order to serve an interest.
knaves flattery invention
Where Young must torture his invention To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.
law agree
Come, agree, the law's costly.